Starting to fly

Learning to fly

Mastering your ANAFI is surprisingly easy and this is where we teach you how to perform the basic maneuvers to become an experienced pilot!

To start, always position ANAFI so that it is facing away from you and lying flat on a horizontal surface to ensure a straight take-off. To simplify the flight, we also recommend choosing a take-off area that is completely clear of any obstacles.

Practicing to improve your ANAFI piloting skills

Your first goal? Learn to take off and land on a fixed point while changing the orientation of the drone relative to your position. Spend some time doing this exercise to acquire good flying technique and improve your situational awareness.

To start, we suggest that you fly within a range of 0 to 15 meters of yourself to ensure you have full control over the device and learn how to take off smoothly. Then, stabilize your ANAFI in the air before landing it.

Before each take-off, make sure ANAFI is on a flat surface. Press the "Take-off" button to get your drone in the air. The drone takes off automatically and hovers at a height of about 1 meter without moving.

Controlling your drone

ANAFI's controls are easy to use and very intuitive. To make the drone rise, push the left stick of your Parrot Skycontroller 3 upward. To come back down, move it down. To make it rotate (yaw), move the left joystick to the right or to the left and observe the rotation of ANAFI in the chosen direction.

If you are only using your smartphone, the FreeFlight 6 app displays two virtual joysticks, on the left and right of the screen, that respond exactly like those of Parrot Skycontroller 3: to make ANAFI go up, put your left thumb on the white circle that represents the left stick and slide it upwards. To go down, slide your thumb down. To make it rotate (yaw), move your left thumb to the right or to the left.

Moving

If you are using Parrot Skycontroller 3, control the pitch of your drone with the right joystick. If you are only using your smartphone, you can control the pitch of the drone with the right virtual joystick.

In "Manual Flight" piloting mode, make ANAFI move forward by pushing the right joystick forward. To go backward, push the joystick backward. Moving the right joystick to the right or to the left makes ANAFI moves sideways in the chosen direction.

By releasing the right joystick, ANAFI starts hovering again without moving.

Finding your bearings in the air

Depending on the direction in which ANAFI is pointing, you must adjust your piloting controls. For example, when the drone is facing you, the controls seem to be inverted: if you move it forward by pushing the right joystick up, it gets closer to you; if you point the joystick downward, it moves away from you; if you push this joystick to the left, ANAFI slips to your right – and vice versa.

Similarly, the sideways movements of the left joystick seem to be inverted: pushing it to the left makes ANAFI turn (yaw) toward your right.

This is why, for your first few flights, we recommend that you stay facing the rear of ANAFI with its camera pointing in the same direction as you are facing.

When the drone is switched on outdoors, the right GPS icon (that of the drone) on the top bar of Parrot FreeFlight 6 changes from red to green as soon as ANAFI is connected to the satellites.

The GPS gives you access to Parrot tools such as Touch & Fly and Flight Plan (can be purchased in FreeFlight 6) and makes ANAFI more stable, especially at high altitude. The GPS also allows you to locate the drone at any time on the map provided in FreeFlight 6.

Before any outdoor flight, we recommend that you wait until your GPS signal is confirmed (GPS icon of the drone turns green) before taking off. Indeed, this will allow you to use the Return To Home (RTH) feature if needed.

Return to Home (RTH)

This function allows you to automatically bring ANAFI back to its take-off point. To activate it in flight, press the button of Parrot Skycontroller 3 or the corresponding FreeFlight 6 icon.

Whichever way you have enabled this function, the RTH icon of FreeFlight 6 turns green: ANAFI switches to automatic return mode. It is still possible to control the drone as it returns. If necessary, press the Return to Home icon again to shut down the autopilot.

Recovering content

ANAFI comes with a 16GB microSD card, which is pre-installed in the drone, and a microSD to SD adapter. This adapter allows you to access the photos and videos recorded by ANAFI with a card reader or specialized port, marked "SD", on some computers.

With ANAFI's microSD card, you can save an entire flight (25 minutes) in 4K video, but not two complete flights. Therefore, we recommend that you save the contents of this card to a computer and empty the card between each flight.

To recover ANAFI's microSD card, first remove the battery from the drone. The card is found under a metal flap in the middle of the body of the drone. Slowly slide this flap toward the rear of the drone to unlock it, until you hear a little "click". You can then lift the flap and remove the microSD card from its slot.

To reinstall the microSD card, make sure that its connectors are properly fitted to those of ANAFI: there is a mistake-proofing system for checking that it is properly fitted. Close the metal flap on the card and lock it by pushing it down and gently sliding it toward the front of the drone until you hear a little "click". Reinstall ANAFI's battery: your drone is ready to fly and capture beautiful images!

My Parrot

Enhance your flying experience with My Parrot! Find all your flights, watch your videos enhanced with interesting new statistics and share them with other pilots around the world!

When you connect to ANAFI for the first time, you will be asked to sign up to My Parrot. You can also do this by choosing the My Parrot tab from the contextual menu of FreeFlight 6.